


Cowboy

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [11]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel’s on a date with Steve at a nightclub when suddenly Jeremy appears—dressed as a cowboy—and needs her help: he’s been poisoned on a mission. Includes alternate ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The club was dark, hot, and loud, all conditions designed to relax your inhibitions and make you forget you had another life with grown-up responsibilities, even if you hadn’t imbibed liberally at the bar first. For Rachel, it was working perfectly, and she didn’t mind a bit. She liked to think of herself as a girl who knew how to have fun—aside from all that serious, intellectual doctor stuff—but she’d been off her groove lately, and Steve’s suggestion of going dancing had made her remember what her life used to be like before she moved here, in moderation of course. Why she hadn’t thought of it earlier mystified her.

Steve indicated he was going to be away for a few minutes and Rachel staggered to the bar, suddenly grateful to lean against something for a few minutes—she was out of condition for wearing three-inch heels all night. She sipped a gin & tonic and surreptitiously eyed the out-of-place cowboy on her right—ridiculous broad-brimmed hat and Western boots, offset by sinfully tight black jeans and a t-shirt. Well, no one said she couldn’t _look_ , right? But she didn’t want to seem like she was hoping for a pickup, so she pulled out her phone and tried to look busy. That was when she noticed she’d missed a call about forty-five minutes earlier.

From Jeremy.

Well, s—t.

She would have to go outside to call him back, but what about Steve? Well, she’d call him next—that was what call waiting was for.

As Rachel started to pull away from the bar, a hand dropped down on her arm, not hurting her but basically rendering her immobile. The hand belonged to the man next to her, who was knocking back his drink without even looking at her.

“Hey, cowboy—“ she began in irritation—and then she recognized him. “ _Jeremy_?!” She’d only ever seen him in the context of the Center and his appearance in, well, the _real_ world made her wonder if she wasn’t losing her mind after too many late hours at work. She glanced around, trying to see if anyone else had noticed the black ops cowboy in their midst, or if it was just her.

He finally turned to her, leaning casually on the bar, and trading his unbreakable arm-grip for holding her hand. “Hello, Dr. Ward,” he greeted, pushing the brim of his hat up slightly. At least he didn’t call her ‘little lady.’

“What are you _doing_ here?” she demanded, her mind completely blank of logical answers.

“Looking for you,” he responded. “You didn’t answer your phone.”

If she had any doubts about his identity, his flat answer dispelled them. “Why did you call me?” she persisted, since it didn’t seem like he was going to continue on his own.

“I wanted you to meet me at the Center.”

Rachel closed her eyes and took a breath, not feeling the patience she usually did with him. Something about the hot, dark, loud setting, perhaps. “Jeremy—“

“Let’s dance,” he suggested suddenly, dragging her away from the bar.

“I don’t want to—“

“It will be exciting,” he told her, in the least excited tone possible.

She was not feeling the excitement, either. More like irritation. “Jeremy—“

On the other hand, if he was going to dance like _that_ , maybe exciting _was_ the better word for it. She threw one arm around his shoulders for balance as he ground one leg in between hers, one hand on her hip and creeping backwards while the other slid up to the back of her neck as if he was going to pull her in for a kiss. She _meant_ to object, but forgot as soon as she met his gaze, so intensely blue and focused on her like she was the only other person in the world.

Except she wasn’t.

“Rachel?!” She felt a flash of disappointment when Steve appeared beside them, quickly drowned with panic and no small amount of guilt, a potent cocktail.

She shoved herself off Jeremy. “Oh, Steve! This is, uh, my co-worker, Jake! Remember, I told you about Jake in Admin.” She hadn’t, of course, because she’d just thought it up right then, but she tried hard to sell it. “Jake, this is Steve. My boyfriend.” Accompanied by a slight kick, which was supposed to get Jeremy to give her a little personal space instead of staying plastered to her from hip to shoulder, but it didn’t really work. And what exactly was she expecting Jeremy to say, anyway, she could only _imagine_ his expression—

“Hi, Steve, nice to meet you,” Jeremy said brightly, reaching out a hand to shake Steve’s. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Oh… really?” Steve replied, clearly not sure what kind of situation he was facing. Rachel’s dumbfounded expression didn’t help matters.

“Well, we have to go,” Jeremy announced suddenly, starting to pull Rachel away.

“We do?” she hissed at him.

“Crisis at work,” he called back to Steve. “Couldn’t live without her.”

“Sorry! I’ll call you!” Rachel shouted back over her shoulder to Steve as Jeremy dragged her towards the door. “What is going on?” she demanded of him.

Jeremy stopped unexpectedly, and she saw him flinch—which meant something was very wrong. “Stand here,” he said, pressing her back against the bar. Then he tapped a large man on the shoulder and punched him in the jaw when he turned around. Rachel hoped the wimpy girly scream she heard wasn’t her, but suspected it was; at the same time she realized Jeremy must have been holding back, because the man only staggered instead of being laid out on the floor. He immediately swung back, but Jeremy ducked, letting another man near him take the blow, and the fight was on with Jeremy drawing in ever more surly participants.

It didn’t take long for the bouncers to catch wind of it and surge over, at which point Jeremy grabbed Rachel’s hand and glided expertly through the crowd out the door. The night was cool and silent compared to the din in the club, and oddly brighter, too, with all the streetlamps.

“Jeremy!” Rachel said forcefully, grinding to a halt on the sidewalk. “I can’t run in these heels, let me just—“

“You probably can’t run to the Center, can you?” he decided, looking her over.

She was not embarrassed by this assessment. “ _Run_ there? It’s like five miles!”

“Six-point-seven,” he corrected, looking around the area.

“You run if you want, I’ll take a cab,” she offered. Going with the flow seemed the safest course here. Whatever the flow was.

Instead Jeremy took off his cowboy hat, put it over his hand, and punched through the back passenger window of a nearby car. As he wormed his way inside to open the passenger side door, car alarm blaring in outrage, Rachel told herself she was sure her boss would bail her out of jail in this situation. Jeremy slid over to the driver’s seat, and Rachel just shook her head and followed him. Prudently she put her seat belt on as he worked under the steering column to hotwire the car. When he succeeded the roar of the engine cut off the car alarm and he pulled smoothly onto the road, immediately flooring the accelerator.

“Call ahead to the Center,” he suggested, deftly running a red light.

“And tell them _what_ , cowboy?” she asked sharply. “That you felt a need to make a run for the border in a stolen car?”

“We’re heading for the Center, not a border,” he corrected. “ETA five-point-two minutes. I need an antidote to a myocarpin-based poison I ingested.”

“S—t, why didn’t you _say so_!” Rachel snapped, whipping out her phone. “Ward, Rachel. Alpha One-One-Three. Medical emergency. Have fifty cc’s of vexitris waiting at the—Which entrance?” she asked Jeremy.

“Oak Street,” he replied, making a hairpin turn she barely felt.

“Oak Street entrance. V-E-X-I-T-R-I-S, it’s an antidote for myocarpin-based poisons,” she continued briskly. “Bring the whole poison kit. And a defibrillator. Five minutes.” Sirens whined behind her and she turned to see two police cars following them. “S—t! The cops are after us!” Then she hung up and began to seriously reconsider her life choices.

“The proper term is, ‘local police in pursuit,’” Jeremy informed her.

“I think they’ll figure it out!” she snapped. They were currently headed the wrong way down a one-way street and she put her hand over her eyes, unashamed to admit she didn’t want to see death coming.

“I’m a good driver,” Jeremy assured her, giving her a concerned look.

“Watch the road, watch the road!” Rachel demanded. Then she realized something. “Adrenaline slows the action of myocarpin-based poisons!”

“Yes,” Jeremy confirmed, which made his behavior seem marginally more sensible. “Don’t worry, Dr. Ward,” he added. “There’s still eight-point-seven minutes before it kills me. At least.”

“Right, I’ll just stop worrying then!” she exclaimed, still not watching where they were going. She tried to pretend the honking horns were for someone else.

“You look nice,” Jeremy told her after a moment. Followed by, “Did you know Steve is still sleeping with his wife?”

_This_ turned Rachel’s fear into anger. “ _What_?! No, he’s _not_ , they’re _separated_ —“

Jeremy shrugged. “They’ve been sleeping in the same bed.”

“You _cannot_ smell his wife on him!” Rachel refuted. And then in case he _could_ —“He was probably just at the house to visit his kids—“

Jeremy’s look was very much, ‘if you say so.’

“Well it’s none of your business anyway!” she told him angrily. “And why are you dressed like a cowboy, and why did you get poisoned?!”

“I’m undercover,” Jeremy replied, “and someone poisoned me.”

Rachel groaned and buried her face in her hands. Working in the ER, she could handle. Medical emergencies, she could handle. Being kidnapped from a date by a psychologically damaged know-it-all secret agent who broke the law like it was a piñata? That, she couldn’t handle.

“You smell nice, too,” Jeremy told her hopefully, and she tried to remind herself that was his way of apologizing. _For getting poisoned_ , let’s not forget, which was hardly something to apologize for.

“Thanks, Jeremy,” she sighed.

“Why did you tell Steve my name was Jake?” he wanted to know, swerving around some new obstacles like he was playing a video game on the beginner’s level.

“I don’t even know, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” she admitted. “Wait—were you at Major Lee’s? It’s Cowpoke Night. Were you on a mission, or were you at a gay bar getting drugged by date-rapists?!”

“Both,” he replied.

“J---s, Jeremy.”

“I liked the music at your bar better,” he decided thoughtfully. They sailed through the open Center gates, which slid shut behind them, cutting off the cop cars. That was going to be a mess. “I liked—“ He shook his head as if to clear it and the car started to wobble. “—dancing with—“

“Brake! Brake!” Rachel ordered, before he completely lost control of the car. He yanked on the wheel, screeching the tires as he brought it to a halt. “Jeremy!”

He had suddenly gone deathly pale and beads of sweat popped on his face. “I may have overestimated,” he admitted shakily.

The physician on duty and several others were already racing towards the car. “Jeremy, open your eyes,” Rachel snapped, unbuckling her seatbelt and kneeling on the seat to shake him. “They’re almost here, stay with me!” She smacked his cheek but couldn’t bring herself to hit him hard enough to actually generate any adrenaline; the slightly annoyed look he seemed to give her didn’t help.

She thought of kissing him. He had found dancing exciting enough, maybe it was worth a try. Rachel hitched her skirt up a few inches and straddled his lap, took his face in her hands—and then the car door opened.

“Dr. Ward?”

“Fifty cc’s of vexitris, _now_!” she commanded, holding Jeremy’s arm out for the injection. His eyes rolled back and he passed out cold as the antidote hit his system, toppling them both sideways. He was unconscious but alive, and now all she had to worry about was getting out of the car without flashing anyone. And what she was going to tell her boss about all the criminal charges.


	2. Silly alternate ending

Jeremy sailed the car through the open gates of the Center facility, and Rachel looked back to see the guards closing them, forcing the pursuing police to halt. Well _that_ was going to be a mess to sort out later. She felt the car slowing down, faster than she expected, still some distance from the actual building, and she glanced over at Jeremy. He was looking suddenly pale, beads of sweat popping on his face, and his hands shook when he reached to change gears.

“Jeremy? Jeremy!” The car stopped abruptly and he leaned forward to rest his head on the steering wheel, unable to go any further.

Rachel jumped out of the car. “Hey!” she shouted at the people waiting by the building’s entrance. They had already started moving towards them but she hoped shouting and waving her arms better conveyed the urgency of the situation. Then she ducked back in the car, trying to push Jeremy into a more upright position. “Jeremy? Jeremy, hey, open your eyes, they’re coming, it’s almost over.”

He didn’t respond, just breathed heavily. “Jeremy!” She smacked his cheek, not very hard really because that wasn’t really the type of person she was—even if she knew she was just doing it to get his adrenaline going again, it seemed wrong. And ineffective anyway, as his eyes fluttered only briefly in response—well, with _his_ life, getting slapped in the face was probably no more alarming than a hangnail to someone else.

Time to do something a little less orthodox, then.

Hitching her skirt up slightly, Rachel straddled him, nearly catching one of her heels in the steering wheel. Not the most graceful maneuver ever. But there was no time to hesitate—she took Jeremy’s face in her hands, leaned down, and kissed him.

For a second there was no response, which was kind of creepy, then suddenly his mouth moved under hers and he was kissing back, unexpectedly voracious. His hands traveled up her thighs but settled on her waist in safe territory, though to be honest anything safe was starting to fall away as Rachel struggled to remember she had started this for a reason, an important reason, a much more important reason than because there was something very attractive about those intense blue eyes, the muscles that were flexing all around her…

She vaguely heard the driver’s side door being yanked open. “Dr. Ward?” someone interrupted, and Rachel forced herself to pull away.

“Vexitris,” she ordered, slightly out of breath. “Fifty—“ Jeremy captured her lips again and she had to push him back firmly. “Fifty cc’s!”

His eyes narrowed at her and he slid one hand up to the back of her neck, trying to pull her mouth back down to his. He wasn’t hurting her; but clearly he wasn’t feeling as awkward about the situation as she was. Rachel broke away but left him kissing her neck in a possessive way that felt really, really good. “Inject him already!” she insisted to the physician on duty, pushing Jeremy’s arm out.

He didn’t really like it being grabbed by someone who wasn’t Rachel and started to react. “Hey, sit still,” she told him firmly, squeezing his bicep with one hand and running the other through his hair to distract him. It seemed to work, although watching his eyes start to flutter and finally roll back in his head as the antidote coursed through his system was a little disconcerting from this close vantage point.

“Jeremy. Jeremy?” His eyes closed entirely and his hand slipped away from her, leaving a cold patch on her hip as he slumped in the seat, unconscious but alive.

Letting out a long breath Rachel sat back, right onto the steering wheel horn. The sudden blast gave everyone _else_ a spike of adrenaline. “Okay, we need to get him to the hospital wing,” she announced, trying to figure out how to get out of the car without flashing anyone.


End file.
